


my friends of silver and gold

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - Original Flavor [10]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Presents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 18:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4845176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiriya spends some time with her Seneschal and with her Spymaster, and mulls over a few things from the past and from the present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my friends of silver and gold

The others were laughing softly behind her: and their voices joined the musical rustling of leaves, joined the melodic cries of swift-winged birds. Dorian and Cassandra henpecking Varric for some kind of spoiler for his latest serial, or something like it. It was good to hear them laughing, for a change, instead of being silent and weighed down with weariness and wounds. Some missions were worse than difficult -- but this one had been easy, and they’d collected quite a few things of interest to the Inquisition, and the sun was setting in a rosy blush over the Frostbacks.

Kiriya took a deep breath of faintly flowery breezes, and thought she could run up to the gates of Skyhold, light-hearted for once.

Bright yellow waving at her, just outside the friendly looming shadows of walls and watchtowers.

“It is very good to see you again, Inquisitor,” Josephine said, and Kiriya returned the air-kissed greeting. “We have received your letters and are moving to act on some of those matters that you have been asking about.”

“That’s good to hear,” Kiriya said, and she looked over her shoulder -- at Cassandra giving orders to the men unloading the armor from her horse, to Dorian polishing an apple on his sleeve to give to a gap-toothed little girl who was giggling up at him with starry eyes -- and nowhere could she see a familiar ruff, a familiar scar, welcoming her back -- 

Josephine cleared her throat and Kiriya turned back to her, and whispered, “Forgive me, I’m being quite rude, and I don’t have the road or something else to blame it on today.”

Lines crinkling around her Seneschal’s eyes, and Josephine looked kind, if a little harried around the edges. “Commander Cullen was called away to Griffon Wing Keep several days ago. Ser Rylen personally requested his company, it seems -- something about evaluating the currently appointed officers, as well as looking into some interruptions to their supply lines. I was assured it would be but a short trip. He may be on his way back as we speak. For now, Leliana and I have things well in hand.”

Kiriya nodded. “So now you just want me to catch up with my share of the paperwork,” she said, tugging playfully on one of Josephine’s sleeves.

A quiet laugh. “I did remember to send on some of the more, ah, outlandish proposals. Perhaps you might find some use for the parchment, at the very least?”

Kiriya hid her grin behind the fresh but minor scrapes on her hand. “Thank you so much.”

“Will you be calling the council?”

“Perhaps a quick meeting before the dinner hour will suffice.”

“Splendid. I will have some light wine sent up.”

“Make it the sparkling Orlesian white and we have a deal.”

Kiriya climbed the next set of stairs and found herself looking wistfully at Cullen’s tower, uninhabited, and seeming more distant without the presence of its commander -- and reluctantly she tore her eyes away, turned her steps away.

Odd, that Cole wasn’t lying in wait for her anywhere -- instead she smelled turnips, again, and then she knew that he was occupied. Perhaps he might seek her out later, or she might buy him a round at the Herald’s Rest. 

As she entered her quarters and began to take off her armor there was a knock on the door -- she hurried back across the room and nodded the maidservants in, running a battered comb through her snarled hair, and frowning at the green burrs that pattered onto her dresser.

Once her hair was wrestled back into some semblance of smooth she picked up the brush, next -- an oddly ornate little thing, something she’d picked up in Val Royeaux on a whim. 

“My lady,” the older of the maidservants said, and bowed her way out, followed by her companion.

Kiriya followed them and locked the door, and looked down at the brush so that she could put it back.

Dark strands of hair, familiar and wavy -- and there, curled delicately around the dark handle with its inlaid swirls of blue, a flash of long silver.

Perhaps it was all the worrying she was doing, or the endless weight of the sleepless nights, or the mere fact that she was so far away from home. The Inquisitor’s sword, or the great dragon maw throne, or the judgements, or the ballads. So many reasons. The silver hair was a surprise and it wasn’t. Some part of her had been holding its breath for it.

Morosely, Kiriya shed her clothes and stepped into the steam of her bath, and began to feel a little better: though that white strand of hair stayed on her mind even as she picked up a washcloth and ran it down her left shoulder and arm. Soft suds sliding along her skin.

 _Scritch-scritch_ of a key. Kiriya started, and looked over her shoulder, and -- “Leliana?”

“Forgive me if I’m interrupting you.” Imperious melodies in that rough voice, and sometimes when Kiriya looked at her Spymaster she saw the dark shadows of that red-lyrium-tainted future -- sometimes she could see nightmare shadows flitting across those expressive eyes.

But today Leliana only looked like she might be hiding something in her pockets -- and then she wasn’t, because she was placing a pair of almost-familiar objects on the nearest dry surface.

Kiriya blinked, and squinted, and looked from the objects to Leliana’s face and back again. “I -- those can’t be -- ”

“I don’t know, Inquisitor,” Leliana said, trying to look stern, though the corner of her right eye was twitching. “What do you think those things are?”

She eyed Leliana suspiciously. “Things that are safe for you to handle, but things that might -- I don’t know, blow up in my face, or kill me.”

A mock-pout was Leliana’s first response. “You do think so little of me, don’t you.”

“I think you’ve got plans within plans and secrets within secrets, and I think you know how to, well, _neutralize_ me, and quite possibly every other person here in Skyhold too.”

“ _That_ I will take as a compliment,” and Leliana laughed, a small rough rusty sound, as though it were being pulled out of her on a wicked blade. “And yes, those things I brought you have to do with secrets, specifically a secret of yours. Something of a treat, this time.”

Kiriya rose from the bath and wrapped herself in a towel, and walked over to inspect the two objects that Leliana had brought her. A jumble of red-blooming shades, tinged in a few places with miniature yellow freckles. “They smell right,” she said, inhaling a hint of fresh sweet juice. “And they look right. But so far as I know, these plums don’t grow much in Ferelden.”

“Plums. Yes.” A quiet laugh. “I heard about them when I was speaking to some of my old Orlesian contacts, and thought I’d procure some. It rather fascinates me to know how _you_ came to know about them.”

“They’re rare in the Tevinter Imperium, too,” Kiriya said, as she took another deep breath of the plum’s wax-dappled skin, “but not so rare that we couldn’t get a small basket or two every few years. Old family connections. I might even be related to Dorian.”

“I’m sure I can find some documents to prove or disprove that.”

“And now I’m confused, are you here because of plums or are you here because you want to talk business?”

“Can’t it be both?”

“That was what the meeting was for?” Kiriya said -- and when Leliana opened her mouth to answer she held up her free hand. “You can answer that question in the War Room. For now, I’m going to eat this.”

She watched the smile creep back onto Leliana’s face. “I hope it’s to your liking, Inquisitor. We do make you do all kinds of dangerous things, don’t we, and then there’s not much in the way of thanks afterwards?”

“You’re busy,” Kiriya said, and sank her teeth into the plum: and dark golden juices spilled out past the corners of her lips, onto her fingertips, and she hurried to lick up every last drop, sweet like liquor, clinging to her teeth. “Mmmph!”

She wanted to eat slowly, wanted to make each bite last, wanted to take her time -- but the perfect ripeness of the plum drove her on, into a ravenous silence. Chewing and swallowing and licking her lips with each bite: and she was soon halfway through the plum, thin red skin against golden-yellow pulp, faintly aware that Leliana was laughing softly -- at her. 

She couldn’t care. 

Finally, sadly, the plum was gone and all she had was the hard pit, wrinkled and oddly small in the cup of her juice-stained hand.

“I brought you another one,” Leliana said.

Kiriya frowned at that plum, and made an effort to stay sitting down. “I’ll -- I’ll save it for later.”

The other woman laughed, and shook her head, and got to her feet. “Saving it for _someone_ perhaps?”

Kiriya mimed throwing a knife at her, and watched her beat a hasty, amused retreat.

And so now here she was with her skin still faintly glowing from the heat of the bath. With the pit of a plum and a single silver strand of hair -- and the warm regard of Josephine and Leliana. 

She was still mulling over that last part as she dressed, as she tucked her holdout knife into her boot, as she found another servant in the halls to dispose of the bathwater.

Up to the War Room, and to three wooden cups and a bottle of white wine, and the candles guttering fitfully as she moved tokens around on the table.

Approaching footsteps.

“Excuse the intrusion,” one of the guards said, a stocky woman with a red birthmark on her cheek. “We’ve received word that Commander Cullen will be at Skyhold within the hour.”

“And we were going to break for dinner, oh dear,” Josephine said. “We might as well have the trays brought up.”

Kiriya smiled, and nodded assent, and went out to the anteroom to look for more wooden cups, and -- 

“Inquisitor,” said a low and familiar voice, and she turned around and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


End file.
